On this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, Lisa Gonnerman, vice president of enterprise services at TA Dedicated, sat down with host Leah Shaver, president and CEO of The National Transportation Institute, to discuss how leaders can continue to improve standards in the trucking industry, including in safety policies and in women’s involvement.
After spending nearly two decades in operations, Gonnerman transitioned to safety, compliance and recruiting, where she has been for the past 14 years and feels she can make the biggest impact on the most people.
Gonnerman considers herself lucky to be able to work with many different departments. “I love being able to see all the facets of the operation and really just work hand in hand with the entire business,” she said. “Seeing the end-to-end process helps to create that culture and that feeling that safety is owned by everyone and that everyone has to work together.”
Like many professionals in transportation, Gonnerman originally had no intentions to end up where she did. In the end, she found it rewarding and hasn’t looked back.
“I’ll be honest, I went to college thinking I would major in accounting – until I took that first accounting class,” Gonnerman said. “In Iowa State University’s business college, of course you have to take core classes like managing and marketing. One of those classes was transportation logistics. I had no idea what it would be at the time, but I absolutely fell in love with the entire field.”
Now, she says, that field would be known as supply chain management, but it was a new major at the time. “The classes were still really small, sometimes single-digit students, so I really felt like I was on the cutting edge of a new generation of professionals in transportation,” Gonnerman said.
Growing up on a farm with truck drivers in the family, Gonnerman was familiar with trucking and unintimidated by making it her profession. “Even though I hadn’t intended to go into the field, I recognized it as a reliable, long-term career,” she said. “When you think about what trucking does for our modern world, it’s so important. I knew it wasn’t short-term and that jobs wouldn’t be going anywhere.”
“I’ll never forget my first job,” Gonnerman said. “Our boss was out there in a suit, crawling around on the ground to show us all the parts to a trailer. He said, ‘Once you get into trucking, you’ll never get out. Of course, I thought he was a crazy old man at that time, but now I’m that crazy old woman who says it to everyone else. There’s nothing like it. It’s fast-paced, it’s important, and the people are great.”
As she gets closer to retirement, Gonnerman has been considering how she can leave the industry, her company and the people she works with better than she found them.
According to Gonnerman, there are still many challenges in the trucking industry she plans to work on until she retires. “I’m very concerned about distracted driving, for example – and not just for trucking, but the entire motoring public,” she said. “It’s shocking how many people are reading books, watching videos and completely unfocused on the road.”
Gonnerman says safety departments must continue to fight for drivers and advocate for safety standards, and that’s her main focus.
“One issue I’m working with now is the idea of zero-tolerance policies regarding cell phone usage,” Gonnerman said. “I’ve worked with companies on both sides of that fence, and it’s a tough one.”
“People want to be able to connect with their families while they’re on the road away from home, and of course it can be a deterrent for recruiting to tell a qualified driver that they can’t call their spouse hands-free while driving,” she said.
Safety continues to be the No. 1 priority, and any distractions are a danger, but Gonnerman says there has to be a realistic balance.
“No matter what position you take, you have to be able to manage it,” she said. “You have to carefully think through your procedures and practices and be able to consistently manage that. If you have a no cell phone policy but your dispatchers keep texting or calling a driver, you’ve created a dilemma for everyone involved. You have to account for those situations, look at your whole picture and think about what works best for you in the balance of maintaining rigorous safety standards.”
Gonnerman was recently named one of three finalists for this year’s Influential Woman in Trucking Award.
“I’m honored and humbled by this nomination,” Gonnerman said. “I remember being at Women in Trucking last year and listening to a panelist and thinking it was awesome to realize how far this industry has come with the prevalence of women in trucking leadership since I first started my career.”
There were very few women in Gonnerman’s classes when she studied transportation logistics, she says, and there were many challenges she had being the only woman in the room.
“This industry is still very male-dominated, but I love seeing more women,” Gonnerman said. “Raising two kids and maintaining my career hasn’t always been easy. It’s a matter of what you and your family can do and want to do, and that’s going to come down to each family.”
“I tell my team, men and women, that you always have to support your family first, but I’m so glad to see moms and dads be able to pursue their career goals and make it work,” Gonnerman said.
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